Did someone ask for seconds?

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The Monster In My Mirror

by Lyda Mae (RavenDove) Huff

Chapter Two: Only In My Mind

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Julian came to tied to a biobed with a feeding tube inserted down through his nose and an IV attached to each arm. The fullness of his stomach was uncomfortable, but the point was made. Only in my own mind do I have freedom.

Dr. Nurek entered Bashir's field of vision. "The naiso gastric tube is a temporary measure, but a more permanent one can be made if you continue on this self destructive course, Julian."

Bashir was more than tempted to tell Nurek to go to Hell, but thought it better to pretend he was still in a drugged stupor. You take round one Nurek, but this war isn't over. If my life is to become one endless mind game with you, then I can play nice if it suits me.

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The next day they moved him back to the isolation room. He ate half of what they gave him and drank his full ration of water. It was enough to get them to remove the NG tube, but the threat would always remain.

"I asked you if you understood why you have been sent here, Julian?" Dr. Nurek said from his side of the isolation room field.

"You already know my answer; so I didn't see the point in repeating it." Bashir said as he wrote out another line of code with the stylus.

"It is your unwillingness to accept the facts that keeps you in isolation, Julian."

"I will not confess to a crime that I did not commit." On with another line of code.

"You might find things easier if you just kept that journal in standard."

"Why?" Julian asked as he paused half way through a line. "Would you like to read it?"

"Yes Julian," Nurek said with a tilted head, "I would like to read it."

"That," Bashir said with a smile, "is why it is written in code."

"This distrust is illogical."

"No Dr. Nurek." Bashir said. "You are illogical, and at the moment irrelevant." Julian went back to the code. The key to the puzzle was somewhere in his memory.

"What do you mean by irrelevant?"

"M.J. Balla said that each Human defines there own reality." Julian looked up from the padd. "She was a poet philosopher from the early twenty-first century on Earth."

"And at this moment in your reality you have decided that I am irrelevant." said Nurek.

"A conscious choice," said Julian, "but mine to make."

"I could take away the padd Julian." said Nurek.

"But then you wouldn't have the fun of trying to decode my confession."

"Is that what you are writing?"

"No," said Julian with a smile, "It's actually just a collection of nasty limericks about your wife."

Nurek's eyebrow raised. "If I am irrelevant then why are you trying to bait me?"

"Did it work?"

"I have other patients to see Julian." said Nurek as he rose from his chair. "If you are not interested in making progress I cannot make you."

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